News from the Clicklist Front

i haven’t posted much about work but I made a discovery I am really excited about so I’m going to write here, on my blog, about it.

Clicklist selectors use a handheld device called a rad which tells you the next item to pick and includes the mapping location for the store. Location is as follows: aisle.shelf.spot. It’s designed to be able to be used by the greenest, newest employee from the get-go. The whole system is set up to be as mistake-proof as possible and it works pretty well.

Anyone who knows me at all, though, knows I’m interested in continuous improvement. I like to do better and be better with each passing day. After five months I’ve learned a few ways to work with the system to be more efficient.

Here’s how it works:

I scan six tags which are on totes. The totes are numbered 1-6. After this step, the first item appears on the screen. Maybe it’s some kind of shampoo. The item is listed, along with the UPC code, and the location. A lot of times, the location is correct, but there are a number of reasons why it might not be. Anyway, off I go to the location to find the item. I find it, scan it, and then and only then the rad tells me which tote to put it in. Then I put the item in the correct tote and scan the tote. Only after that does the rad tell me the next item and location. All along the way there are built-in safeguards to keep you from picking up the wrong item. You can’t scan the wrong item or the wrong tote without a tone letting you know YOU DID IT WRONG, BUCKO.

Just like every piece of electronic equipment known to man, we run into (LOTS OF) times when we have to wait for the “server” to respond. So, I might stand there for a few seconds waiting to find out which tote to put the item in. These few secondses add up.

I just discovered that the rad has a colored bar across the top on every entry. Well, actually, I knew the rad had a colored bar but I didn’t know it meant anything. But it does! It means something important and helpful and cool! The six totes are color-coded. Tote 1 has a maroon bar; tote 2 has a green bar, etc. What this means is that I now know without waiting which tote the item is going to go into.

Corporate has set up standards for how many seconds it should take to pick each item, and how accurately we complete the task. The goal is 38 seconds per item. That may not mean much without context — each selector pushes a large trolley through the store up and down the aisles, so part of the time is moving from location to location through the entire store. There is a huge range of seconds-per-item among selectors. I’ve been hovering around 38-42 seconds lately. With this realization about the color coding and utilizing it on the job, my pick time today was significantly lower per item.

Selectors don’t get any extra incentive pay for being fast, but truly if i was only working for money, there might be other jobs that pay more. But this job is just a great fit for me!

This post is probably a little “niche.” Probably along the line of two plumbers joking around about someone using a particular wrench for a job. (h/t to Steve Martin for that idea) Probably this is the kind of thing that most people aren’t really going to be able to appreciate the significance of. But I wanted to write about it because to me this is a very exciting discovery and has some pretty cool benefits.

Ooh, and one last thing. The “big boss” (supervisor over several stores) was in today and my supervisor had me tell him about the effectiveness of using the color-coded bars the way I am. He didn’t just take my word for it, but said he was going to do some research about it, because he hadn’t heard this from anyone else.

Cool thing was when I mentioned that totes 1 and 6, and totes 3 and 5 are very close in color, he said he is able to change those colors to any color we want! That will make the process even better! I look forward to that happening.

If you haven’t already tried clicklist, do! The $4.95 fee for the first three orders will be waived. There is no upcharge for your items. Kroger has a very nice produce section that is restocked constantly all day every day. And if we provide a substitution you do not care for, you do not have to pay for it. Give it a try!

Sounds like you have great problem-solving skills! Like an online shopping engineer. 😉 I’m tempted to try ClickList except that grocery-shopping is one of my main social outlets. You never know who you might run into in Kroger! Maybe I’ll see you there one day.

LOL Sarah. Nothing says you can’t go into the store when you go to pick up your order! 🙂 You could even take a small cart and walk around the store. Then go back to your car and luxuriate while the clicklist person brings out your groceries and puts them in your car.

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